II
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION S. 380
To improve obstetric emergency care.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
FEBRUARY4, 2025
Ms. H
ASSAN(for herself, Ms. COLLINS, Mrs. BRITT, and Ms. SMITH) intro-
duced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Com-
mittee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
A BILL
To improve obstetric emergency care.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Rural Obstetrics Read-4
iness Act’’. 5
SEC. 2. OBSTETRIC EMERGENCY TRAINING PROGRAM. 6
Section 330O of the Public Health Service Act (42 7
U.S.C. 254c–21) is amended— 8
(1) in subsection (a)— 9
(A) in paragraph (3), by striking ‘‘; and’’ 10
and inserting a semicolon; 11
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(B) in paragraph (4), by striking the pe-1
riod and inserting ‘‘; and’’; and 2
(C) by adding at the end the following: 3
‘‘(5) developing, and facilitating access to, an 4
evidence-based program to train practitioners in 5
rural health care facilities without dedicated obstet-6
ric units to provide emergency obstetric services dur-7
ing pregnancy, labor, delivery, or the postpartum pe-8
riod, including training on how to prepare for, iden-9
tify, stabilize, and safely transfer, as appropriate 10
and within the scope of practice of an individual 11
practitioner, a woman experiencing labor, delivery, 12
obstetric hemorrhage, severe hypertension, cardiac 13
conditions, perinatal mental health conditions, sub-14
stance use, sepsis, or other conditions, as appro-15
priate.’’; 16
(2) by redesignating subsections (c) and (d) as 17
subsections (d) and (e), respectively; 18
(3) by inserting after subsection (b) the fol-19
lowing: 20
‘‘(c) T
RAININGPROGRAM FOR ELIGIBLEPRACTI-21
TIONERS INRURALHEALTHCAREFACILITIES.—A train-22
ing program described in subsection (a)(5) shall include 23
an assessment of obstetric training needs for rural health 24
care facilities without dedicated obstetric units. In devel-25
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oping the training program, a recipient of a grant under 1
such subsection shall— 2
‘‘(1) work in consultation with at least one rep-3
resentative from a national medical society that has 4
experience or expertise in rural health care delivery 5
in each of the fields of gynecology and obstetrics, 6
emergency medicine, family medicine, and anesthesi-7
ology; and 8
‘‘(2) facilitate access to obstetric readiness 9
training via regional training partnerships and tech-10
nical assistance to rural health care facilities.’’; and 11
(4) in subsection (e), as so redesignated, by 12
adding at the end the following: ‘‘In addition to 13
amounts appropriated under the previous sentence, 14
for grants for the purpose described in subsection 15
(a)(5), there are authorized to be appropriated 16
$5,000,000 for the period of fiscal years 2026 17
through 2028’’. 18
SEC. 3. GRANT FUNDING FOR EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES. 19
Part D of title III of the Public Health Service Act 20
(42 U.S.C. 254b et seq.) is amended by inserting after 21
section 330A–2 the following: 22
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‘‘SEC. 330A–3. PROGRAM OF SUPPORT FOR OBSTETRIC 1
SERVICES. 2
‘‘(a) I
NGENERAL.—The Secretary shall award 3
grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements to eligible en-4
tities to integrate obstetric readiness training curriculum 5
into rural health care settings, build workforce capacity, 6
and purchase equipment necessary to manage obstetric 7
emergencies. 8
‘‘(b) U
SE OFFUNDS.—A recipient of funds under 9
this section shall use such funds for the purpose described 10
in subsection (a), which may include any of the following: 11
‘‘(1) Purchasing or providing equipment and 12
technical assistance to train practitioners who are 13
not specialized in obstetrics in preparing for, identi-14
fying, stabilizing, and transferring, as appropriate 15
and within the scope of practice of the practitioner, 16
individuals experiencing obstetric emergencies. 17
‘‘(2) Purchasing or providing equipment nec-18
essary to prepare for, identify, stabilize, or transfer, 19
as appropriate, individuals experiencing obstetric 20
emergencies. 21
‘‘(3) Developing and carrying out protocols for 22
transfer of patients to other facilities and network 23
engagement with other facilities. 24
‘‘(4) Hiring additional personnel or paying the 25
salaries of personnel. 26
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‘‘(5) Establishing training opportunities to en-1
able non-obstetric health professionals to gain expo-2
sure to, and expertise in, the delivery of obstetric 3
services, including through clinical rotations, fellow-4
ships, or cross-training clinicians in other specialties. 5
‘‘(6) Enabling clinical educators to coordinate, 6
develop, and implement comprehensive interdiscipli-7
nary trainings, including team-based simulation 8
training for providers who may need to respond to 9
an obstetric emergency. 10
‘‘(c) E
LIGIBLEENTITIES.—To be eligible to receive 11
a grant under this section, an entity shall— 12
‘‘(1) be— 13
‘‘(A) a rural hospital, critical access hos-14
pital (as determined under section 1820(c)(2) 15
of the Social Security Act), or a rural emer-16
gency hospital (as defined in section 17
1861(kkk)(2) of the Social Security Act) that is 18
located in a maternity care health professional 19
target area or a rural area (as defined by the 20
Secretary); or 21
‘‘(B) a consortium of 3 entities that in-22
cludes at least 2 entities described in subpara-23
graph (A); and 24
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‘‘(2) agree to carry out the program described 1
in subsection (a), in coordination with other feder-2
ally funded maternal and child health programs, to 3
the extent practicable, and in consultation with other 4
maternal and child health programs in the same geo-5
graphic area. 6
‘‘(d) D
EFINITIONS.—In this section— 7
‘‘(1) the term ‘maternity care health profes-8
sional target area’ means a primary care health pro-9
fessional shortage area that is experiencing a short-10
age of maternity health care professionals, as identi-11
fied under section 332(k); and 12
‘‘(2) the term ‘rural area’ has the meaning 13
given such term by the Federal Office of Rural 14
Health Policy. 15
‘‘(e) A
UTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—To 16
carry out this section, there is authorized to be appro-17
priated $15,000,000 for the period of fiscal years 2026 18
through 2029.’’. 19
SEC. 4. PILOT PROGRAM FOR TELECONSULTATION. 20
Part D of title III of the Public Health Service Act 21
(42 U.S.C. 254b et seq.), is amended by inserting after 22
section 330A–3, as added by section 3, the following: 23
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‘‘SEC. 330A–4. PILOT PROGRAM FOR TELECONSULTATION. 1
‘‘(a) I
NGENERAL.—The Secretary, acting through 2
the Administrator of the Health Resources and Services 3
Administration and in consultation with the Administrator 4
of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, shall 5
award grants or cooperative agreements to States, political 6
subdivisions of States, and Indian Tribes and Tribal orga-7
nizations (as such terms are defined in section 4 of the 8
Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act) 9
to support the provision of urgent maternal health care 10
in rural facilities without a dedicated obstetric unit, in-11
cluding by— 12
‘‘(1) supporting the development of statewide or 13
regional maternal health care telehealth access pro-14
grams; and 15
‘‘(2) supporting the improvement of existing 16
statewide or regional maternal health care telehealth 17
access programs described in subsection (b). 18
‘‘(b) S
TATEWIDE ORREGIONALMATERNALHEALTH 19
C
ARETELEHEALTH ACCESSPROGRAMS.—A maternal 20
health care telehealth access program described in this 21
section, with respect to which an award under subsection 22
(a) may be used, shall— 23
‘‘(1) be a statewide or regional network of ma-24
ternal health care teams that provide urgent support 25
to rural non-obstetric settings of care; 26
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‘‘(2) support and further develop organized 1
State or regional networks of maternal health care 2
teams to provide urgent consultative support to 3
rural non-obstetric settings of care; 4
‘‘(3) conduct an assessment of urgent maternal 5
health consultation needs among providers in rural 6
non-obstetric settings of care; 7
‘‘(4) provide assurances that the physicians re-8
sponsive to the tele-consultation line are credentialed 9
within their employing facility and can provide con-10
sultation where the patient is receiving care con-11
sistent with State requirements to provide care to in-12
dividuals experiencing labor, delivery, obstetric hem-13
orrhage, severe hypertension in pregnancy and 14
postpartum, cardiac conditions related to or exacer-15
bated by pregnancy, perinatal mental health condi-16
tions, substance use during pregnancy or the 17
postpartum period, sepsis during pregnancy or after 18
pregnancy end, or other conditions, as appropriate; 19
‘‘(5) provide rapid statewide or regional clinical 20
telephone or telehealth consultations when requested 21
between the maternal care teams and providers in 22
rural emergency non-obstetric settings; and 23
‘‘(6) provide information to health care pro-24
viders about available maternal health services for 25
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people in the community and assist with referrals to 1
specialty care and community or behavioral health 2
resources. 3
‘‘(c) R
EPORTING.—An entity receiving an award 4
under this section shall submit a report to the Secretary, 5
in such manner and containing such information as the 6
Secretary may require, not later than 18 months after ini-7
tial receipt of the grant. 8
‘‘(d) A
UTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—To 9
carry out this section, there is authorized to be appro-10
priated $5,000,000 for the period of fiscal years 2026 11
through 2029.’’. 12
SEC. 5. STUDY ON OBSTETRIC UNITS IN RURAL AREAS. 13
The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall— 14
(1) conduct a study that maps maternity ward 15
closures and regional patterns of patient transport 16
and examines models for regional partnerships for 17
rural obstetric care; and 18
(2) not later than 3 years after the date of en-19
actment of this Act, submit to the Committee on 20
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions of the Sen-21
ate and the Committee on Energy and Commerce 22
and the Committee on Education and Workforce of 23
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the House of Representatives, a report on the results 1
of the study conducted under paragraph (1). 2
Æ
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